curious about % on contract

I realize i'm a new guy and a smalltimer compared to most of you, but after seeing so many questions answered with {what does your contract say?}, I'm curious. What percentage of your residential accounts are on contract?out of my 14 residentials i have 0 on contract. my only contract is my only comm. and its a great way to do business, wish all of them were. I have good customers who like my work but they look at you like your goofy when you start talking yearly contracts. I have yet to give an estimate, of which i've done 32 residential and 5 comm, so i'm not the cheapest, where the resi. had ever had a contract. I have had no trouble getting paid or with overgrown lawns, so its not been a problem so far, just curious about it.

Has it always been that way mm? To your knowledge is a contract the norm in your area for residentials? Is this something you worked into or did from the start?

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It has been our normal SOP for the past many years, not all 27 of them, but this was a different business 27 years ago too though. ALso keep in mind I am 90% commercial and have not accepted new residential clients in 2 years now as a) we are so busy and b) I plan to get completely out of the residetial maintenance end. When I do we will only do installs for residentials.

As to my area, I know that all of the fulltime professional LCO's that I know personally here require contracts......but there are also 100 mowjoes for every professional here that don't require squat....of course their "clients" are also the ones that you will see a total if about 5-6 different other MJ's cutting it through the year also because all that type of client wants is their grass cut as cheaply as possible. Those type of clients I would refuse anyway.

61 views and only 2 people reply, does that mean not that many have contracts? not trying to be a wise guy but as much as the subject of contracts come up i would have thought it would be of interest to many. when not a single one of my customers were interested it had me wondering

Been thinking contracts myself. I am a newby getting "my ducks in a row" to go full time on a larger scale next year. I am learning this year and treading lightly and ingesting a lot of information from lawnsite. I am very excited about the prospects for next year and will all likelihood use "service agreements".

Mine are all verbal, contracts are too make it or break it, surefire way to go out of business fast if you don't get it right...
I can change verbals anytime, but a contract, even in my 5th year I find it difficult to walk away from a money-loser when my signature is on paper, and I don't think I could've done it in my 1st or 2nd year.

I don't require it but stronly suggest it and so far I've had really good luck at talking most of my customers into it. Next year though I plan to require it for any customer.

But for this year, if you don't have a contract, you have to pay per visit each and every time. I do not invoice them, it's just another way to annoy them and then tell them "You know I could just invoice you for the whole month with a service agreement".. Oh and I call mine service agreements, since some people are afraid of the word CONTRACT, though I include the word deep in the text of it, just in case it presents some legal problems with not having it.